Massively's headline tweet reads thus:
The BBC story I read early this morning placed far less emphasis on that particular quote.
I'm not saying there isn't a potential problem with video game addiction, despite the fact that it is not a medically classified disorder. Quite the opposite, in fact. While it has never affected my professional or family life (that I am aware of), I have in the past gotten caught up in the "Just one more thing to do before I log off . . . Holy cow, where did that 2 hours go?" cycle. Is there something we can do to change that? Maybe there is; maybe game designers can tweak things. But the nature of a persistent online world is that there will always be one more thing you could do in-game. Maybe there are things players can do for themselves and for others. One key as an individual player is to realize that that one-more-thing will still be there tomorrow or whenever you next log in.
Unless it's evaporative content, then all bets are off.
Psychologist asks designers to shorten quests to fight addiction: http://t.co/ZcihBYVOIp
— massively (@massively) August 6, 2013
The BBC story I read early this morning placed far less emphasis on that particular quote.
Cyber psychologist Dr Zaheer Hussain, from the University of Derby: "One idea [emphasis mine] could be to shorten long quests to minimise [brit sp, FTW!] the time spent in the game obtaining a certain prized item."Of course, that is a naive suggestion to anyone who has actually played an MMO. The length of quests is probably the least addictive part of the games, especially compared to level grinds, gear grinds, exploration, crafting, achievements, etc, etc, ad nauseum, etc.
~~BBC News, Online game firms need to do more to prevent addiction say researchers
Unless it's evaporative content, then all bets are off.
Wow, you seem to be on a posting streak lately. :D
ReplyDeleteAnd yes I totally agree. If anything, questing *keeps* me from gaming. If I'm listening around me, I'm not the only one having seen enough of quests, quests and more quests. It's more the actual gameplay itself that's addictive (for me, socializing and warzones/class stories in SWTOR atm). I've grown over it a bit myself by now, but it's a terrible task to get Tiger over to bed sometimes (and I hate having to play the annoying girlfriend role :S).
LOL, I haven't had that problem yet, I don't think. Ask Scooterz. :P
DeleteI am trying to to up the ante a bit on posts.
In other news, McD's wants you eating at McD's, and NBC wants you to watch NBC.
ReplyDeleteAnd water tends to be extremely wet. But I'm not sure to what you are referring here. Is it that the BBC and Massively are stating the obvious? Or the psychologists are? Or that games companies want folks to play games? Or that everyone involved has at least a modicum of responsibility over balancing game hobbies and the rest of life? What are you getting at?
DeleteCivilization disproves that psychologist's entire point haha. No game has been so addicting to me as Civilization. It has this "one more turn" syndrome that makes me never get bored of it. This is a serious problem lol.
ReplyDeleteWell, like I said, he only made a suggestion. I think there are things in MMOs far more addicting than the length of individual quests.
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